Nightfall

Nightfall

 

It is quiet,
the dark of night
brings its hollow solitude.

Like an ebbed shoreline
knowing the tide will return
but for here, for now,
parched of the salty caress
of the tendrilled sea,
I am missing you.

There may be the vestige of your scent
lying beside me in empty
untangled bedclothes,
but Tantalus Covid
hides it within its tarrying fingers.
I sense the scent
with imagination
not nasal appreciation.

I sense you
as I fall into that solitude,
the void,
that sleep dictates.
You may step into that unknown
holding my hand
or leave me marooned
to the unwinding
of slumbers control.

When I awake,
released from dreaming confinement
you will still be distnt,
though close as breathing,
close as rhythm,
as pulsing
as the tide,
as the longing
that separation endows.